Random Daron
In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In everything, love.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
The Idea of Being
How could I not know after fifty years of marriage (when that comes) who precisely my husband is? It keeps changing. Yes, he constantly changes his mind, but I mean that who he is is always changing, influenced by education, interactions, experiences, opportunities, all of that. Furthermore, I'll still be discovering things about myself fifty years down the road; there's no way I could have both him and me figured out at any point in life.
Being in a counseling program requires that you learn a lot about yourself, as I'm sure I've mentioned before. It's been really easy for me to focus on the negative things I have learned, especially since I'm trying to improve my weaknesses as a counselor. Lately, however, I've noticed more positive things. I'm discovering new things about myself that have me a little excited - and surprised. It's not that these new things are so exciting in themselves; it's that I'm understanding myself better and seeing more clearly who I am. And who I am is someone who likes to know people
As I said above, we like to think we have particular people figured out. Whether it's the elderly church lady you've known for twenty years or the guy down the street that was arrested for drug possession, we think we know what to expect out of people. It's easier that way, isn't it? If we know who they are, we don't have to make an effort to change that perception. It's easy to put people in a box and throw away the key, because jumping in the box with them is just too damn scary.
The excitement I'm feeling about discovering new things about myself is worth the pain of finding out things I don't like. Thinking that I'm one thing and finding out I'm something else entirely is scary. I've certainly ran away from discovering things about myself before, and I'm absolutely sure that I'm not alone in that.
But I love being surprised. I love it when someone reveals something new about themselves to me. I love finding out that my perception was wrong. Yes, it can be difficult and disorienting, but to me it's worth the price of getting to know people.
I've always had this desire to blow people's minds. I want to show you who I am, but I really want to show you that I'm not who you think I am. I'm different. I'm someone who thinks everyone is different. I'm someone who relishes that idea and can't wait to see more of it. I'm the person that will punch through the walls of your box if I have to - if you'll let me - and let the light in. I want to see you.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Hello, New Blogger Interface
Speaking of new things... A good friend of mine just told me about ohlife, which is this site that sends you an email each day asking "How was your day?" When you reply, it saves your reply as a journal entry. Obviously, this is not posted in a public forum; only you see these entries. You can have it send the email weekly, if you'd rather. My friend said that her sister used it with her new baby, which is just the greatest idea ever. I've thought about (when we have kids) taking a picture of the baby each day for at least a year. How crazy would it be to see the daily progress of your baby growing?? Plus, you can add photos to these entries, which would allow you to do something like that AND write about it. Sweet. I love it. Now I want kids even more than I already did. ;)
Btw, that link up there (and here - ohlife) is just for you. :)
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Calm Before the Storm
So, my classes start back up tomorrow. I've really enjoyed having the last couple of weeks off, especially after that crazy five week semester with two classes. NEVER doing that again. I have never been that stressed about anything for that long. The classes were great, though; I loved both of my professors and learned a lot. That, at least, helped with the stress.
I'm looking forward to my classes for the semester. I have a family therapy class, Clinical Techniques, and Human Sexuality. This should be fun. Clinical is bound to be my most work-intensive class, what with all the tapes and case conceptualizations I'll be turning in. However, I'm expecting to learn a lot about myself as a counselor, which is both exciting and a little terrifying. We've been practicing, you know, with fellow students and role plays, but I know there's so much more to it than just discovering covered issues - it's actually dealing with them and working to improve them. We haven't done a whole lot of that yet. That's the part I'm most scared of but also most interested in. Yes, we can find problems - but our purpose as counselors is to help people with those problems, not to just find new ones or deeper explanations for already acknowledged ones. It's like one of my favorite lines from Grey's Anatomy from Christina: "You know, being aware of your crap and actually overcoming your crap are two very different things."
I have always been good at finding problems. That's not a bad thing, especially in certain situations. Nevertheless, finding those problems is useless unless something is actually done about them. Okay, you found it - now do something to fix it. I often get so immersed in finding the problem that I forget to find the solution. Sometimes, it's laziness. I find it easy to think someone else will deal with it. This is often because I think of all the ways I'm not equipped to deal with it. So I stop at finding the problem, talk to someone about it, then pray it goes away or gets fixed. If you haven't figured it out by now, that's a not-so-successful way to go about things.
Now, I just recently figured out the above problem with myself. The thing is, now I have to do something about it. Whoa. Now that I have a clearer picture of how I react to issues, I have to start DOING something to change it. This will take a while (as serious change always does), but it's something I know is worth working for.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Why Do I Ramble?
Monday, July 11, 2011
So Much For Earlier Promises
I started one of my summer session classes today. I'm taking two classes in this five-week session. Each week I will have almost 17 hours of classes. I'm not sure what my other class looks like yet, but my first one alone is formidable. I knew there would be quite a bit of work, and thank God the professor actually cut down the normal load, but seeing it on paper was totally different. My other class shouldn't be AS bad, but we'll just have to see. Plus I'm doing part-time work, AND we're moving August 1. No free time for me until August 12.
Regardless of all that, this class will be interesting. It's Multicultural Counseling. Being from a small town in West Tennessee, I haven't had much exposure to other cultures. Therefore I look forward to learning a lot in this class. Of course, that involves a lot of reading and writing and discussion. Yay.
Anyway, I'm hoping some day I will indeed hold to my earlier claim that I would blog more. It's just probably almost definitely not happening in the next five weeks.